What Is the Biggest Hidden Risk in Your Property Portfolio?

Question

After reviewing many property portfolios, I noticed something interesting:

The biggest risks are rarely the obvious ones.

Instead, they are small issues that accumulate quietly:

• insurance coverage gaps
• maintenance backlog
• compliance oversights
• vendor performance issues

Individually, they seem small.

But together they can significantly affect portfolio performance.

I’d love to hear from property owners and managers:

What risk concerns you most in your portfolio today?

Joel Miller · Answer

In Pennsylvania, insurance carriers are required to notify any interested party on the policy, such as a lienholder or landlord that the policy is going to lapse due to nonpayment of premium or any other reason. They do this by mail. Carriers cannot actually cancel the policy without giving the policyholder 30 days to pay up. So, we have a built-in mechanism for being notified whenever we require that the tenants list us on their policy as an interesting party. I suspect this is the same in many other states.

Ali Asadi · Answer

Good point. That’s a useful safeguard.

Joel Miller · Answer

Tenants who let their renters insurance lapse is a huge risk. It doesn't take much of an incident that would have been covered by their insurance to create a situation that they are liable for but which they cannot pay.

Ali Asadi · Answer

Good point. Insurance lapses can be a hidden risk because managers often don’t realize a policy has expired.

How do you usually keep track of renters' insurance status?